Page:Mannering - With axe and rope in the New Zealand Alps.djvu/25

Rh floating on two punts is attached by runners. The coach and four is driven bodily on to the stage, and by the aid of a rudder the punts are skied so as to point across the stream diagonally. The force of the water rushing obliquely on to the sides of the punts drives the whole affair across in a space of about three or four minutes. This ingenious plan is commonly adopted in the New Zealand rivers.

During the months of winter it is possible to reach the Hermitage direct from Tekapo, and thus avoid striking south to go round Lake Pukaki, by crossing the Tasman River. During summer, however, as a rule, this river is impassable, for it rises so fast during warm and nor'-west weather from rain and melting snow that sometimes the whole bed of the river—two miles wide—is a network of rushing yellow torrents quite unfordable by man or beast.

Readers of the Rev. W. S. Green's 'High Alps of New Zealand' will recollect that his conveyance found a last resting-place in the quicksands of the Tasman. Von Lendenfeld also, the year after Mr. Green, experienced an unhappy week's delay on the eastern bank of the river. I have myself narrowly escaped drowning at the same point, and in years gone by the Tasman River has been accountable for more than one life.

The river in full flood is a sight to see; the water in places runs fifteen knots an hour, or even more. In the rapids it is piled up in the middle from sudden contraction of the banks, and forms crested billows four or five feet in height, whilst now and then a block of ice from the glacier may be seen bowling along.

The ancient glacier-formed terraces of the Tasman